LOG IN

UPS: What They Are Doing to Avoid Holiday Mess on Busiest Day of Year

United Parcel Service Inc. to deliver 34 million packages today.

By

SUSANNA KIM

December 22, 2014, 3:46 PM

4 min read

4 min read

0:19

UPS Gears Up for Its Busiest Shipping DayThe shipping company is slated to deliver a historic high of 34 million packages today, in the final crunch before Christmas.Scott LaPierre/Boston Globe/Getty Images

Customers can track the timing of packages using UPS MyChoice online or with a mobile app, also allowing consumers to set up alternative delivery locations like a neighbor’s home or a UPS Store location, or as specific as a "back door."

Registered MyChoice members can get a free text or email message the day before the package arrives. If the initial delivery time doesn’t work, there are options to reschedule or reroute the package for $5.

2. Workers Don't Have to Read Zip Codes

"Next Generation Sort Aisle" is UPS' system at three U.S. locations that scans packages quickly and flashes instructions to workers, so they don't have to memorize hundreds of ZIP Codes, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"Basically, we can automatically re-route package sort so that when the UPSer scans a package it tells them what chute to put it in," a UPS spokesman told ABC News this morning.

3. Reroute Packages in Bad Weather

Before UPS' latest technology was implemented, a UPS supervisor would have to walk to about 50 workers in Atlanta separately about packages being rerouted and hope they would remember the note, the Wall Street Journal reported. Now, UPS' system reroutes packages at a "moment's notice."

Employees at UPS' Logan Airport facility load packages from an early morning plane into a truck to be driven to South Boston and loaded on delivery trucks at their South Boston facility and delivered, Dec. 11, 2014 in Boston.

Employees at UPS' Logan Airport facility load packages from an early morning plane into a truck to be driven to South Boston and loaded on delivery trucks at their South Boston facility and delivered, Dec. 11, 2014 in Boston. Scott LaPierre/Boston Globe/Getty Images